Module 2 : Foundational

Values & Limiting Beliefs

Objectives
Identifying foundational or core values
Questions that help clients identify core values
Limiting beliefs and their effect on success, happiness
and fulfilment
Signs that limiting beliefs are impeding life progress
How to help clients overcome limiting beliefs

Foundational Values & Limiting Beliefs –

06m 15s

2.1 Introduction
Mental and emotional issues are coming to
the forefront in today’s world, and people
are now realising that it is not a taboo to
ask for help with life challenges.

Mental health issues have always existed, but we are now

coming forward and acknowledging that we need guidance
regarding the direction and quality of our lives.

Often, we tend to blame other people, circumstances or luck

for events that happen in our lives. While it is true that
circumstances, relationships and other people do have a
profound impact on our lives, life coaching helps us take
responsibility for our choices, thoughts and actions.

As a life coach, you will work together with real people,

their lives, challenges and beliefs and help them restructure
their lives, in accordance with their core values. These core
or foundational values include the inner beliefs that a client
holds about the world, themselves and about reality in
general.

One of the first key steps towards helping your clients is to

increase their self-awareness with regards to their core
values. When you discuss core values with your client, you are
referring to the aspects that are very important to them, and
this list will vary from person to person.
One of your first and foremost tasks as a life coach is to
help your clients identify limiting beliefs. Self-limiting
beliefs can and do often pose as formidable obstacles to
success and progress on the life path. Limiting beliefs
originate from experiences and events, and we subconsciously
internalise fear and insecurity surrounding them. These
beliefs drive our behaviour and choices in a very subtle but
very powerful manner.

Limiting beliefs are often hidden and lie below the surface;
therefore, they are difficult to identify. Left unresolved,
such beliefs about ourselves inhibit progress and turn us into
fearful individuals who are afraid to live life to its fullest
potential. As a competent life coach, you can help clients
identify limiting beliefs and overcome them.

Fact
 Although life coaching does not
involve any qualification or certification, many clients
prefer coaches that belong to professional organisations, such
as EMCC (European Mentoring and Coaching Council) or the
Association for Coaching (AC).
Source: nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk

2.2 Foundational or Core Values

If you asked your clients about their
foundational or core values, many would be
hard-pressed to explain or describe them.

This is very natural because most of us are busy coping with

so many things that we rarely have the time to sit down and
think about what is important to us. However, asking clients
to take their time over this or asking the right questions can
help clients identify their values.

Firstly, values are an integral part of every person’s psyche,

and they influence thoughts, behaviours, actions and
reactions. When your clients live their lives according to the
values that they believe in, they experience fulfilment and
contentment.

Your job as a life coach is to help your clients identify

their core values, so that you can then work together, in
order to achieve their goals.
An individual’s foundational values often determine their
relationships, preferences and conflicts. Misalignment between
our values and our lives often results in stress and conflict.
One of the first tasks of a life coach is to help clients
determine their foundational values. Very often, people set
goals that are not in alignment with their values. In such
cases, you may not be satisfied, even when the goal is
achieved because the goal was not based on your personal
values to begin with.

Some important values are outlined below:

Integrity
In essence, integrity of character describes who we are and
what we stand for. It is defined as a blend of morals, ethics
and values. One of the clearest indicators of integrity of
character is doing things the correct way, simply because it
is the right thing to do and not because of monetary or
material considerations.

Integrity is a foundational value that includes true strength

of character. People with exceptional integrity of character
are instinctively cut out for leadership roles.

Accountability
This refers to the act of accepting responsibility for your
choices and actions. High levels of accountability prevent
people from blaming other people or the government or the
weather for failures and mistakes.

One of the most challenging traits to develop is to be

accountable to ourselves.
We are more inclined to use ‘They’ as opposed to ‘We’ or ‘I’;
such as ‘They misplaced the forms’; ‘They forgot to call the
client’; ‘They didn’t invite us over’.

Accountability for your own growth and goals helps accelerate

progress on your life path. As your clients are now working
with you, they become more accountable for their actions and
will tend to honour their commitment to personal development.

Diligence
Diligence means paying full
following it through to a
giving up. As a life coach,
to help your clients develop
attention to a specific task and
successful conclusion, without
one of your biggest challenges is
diligence.

The word diligence includes perseverance, determination and

conscientiousness. Diligence is a core value that is often
considered more powerful, compared to brilliance or
perfection. Diligent people do not give up easily on work,
relationships or themselves or others.

Discipline
Discipline is also a core value that helps you live a richer,
healthier and more meaningful life. Discipline is simply the
ability to obey rules or governance (this could be your own
internal governance), despite being faced with the temptation
to stray away from your goals.

Self-discipline (a powerful foundational value) implies that

you have the power to motivate and control yourself. Your
client is able to regulate their behaviour, actions or conduct
for the sake of personal improvement.

The same value can express itself in different ways in

different people. Main values are often supported by other
related, subsidiary values.

As we mentioned earlier, most of your clients may not be aware

of their strengths or values.

The following questions can help them think about themselves

and those aspects that are most important to them:

What do you think are your three greatest

strengths/values? (The client may or may not be aware of
the answer to this question, but it can trigger their
thinking process)
Tell me about three challenges in your life and how you
overcame them. (This may help your client identify their
core strengths/values)
Tell me about some unusual skills that you have. (This
question reinforces different ways of looking at
yourself)
On what do you often get complimented?
What do you love doing?

Additional Tips to help your Clients Identify their

Strengths
Once they give you an answer, get into detail, and ask for
specifics. Often, we may possess a lot of strengths but may
not even be aware of them because we have not sat down and
thought about them.

Acknowledge the strengths and values of your clients, and

summarise the overarching theme. This will help your clients
build up their confidence and become aware of their values.

Activity
Estimated time: 5 minutes

What do you identify as your core strengths or values?

What are the values that add meaning and fulfilment to
your day and to your life?
2.3 Limiting Beliefs
‘If you accept a limiting belief, then it
will become a truth for you.’ Louise Hay

In general, beliefs steer relationships, set preferences and

provide a moral framework for our lives.

Limiting beliefs work deep down in the psyche and behave like
invisible forces that prevent us from putting forward our best
self. We feel held back and inhibited and do not maximise our
potential because something holds us back.

Have you ever felt that there were times in your life when you
could have moved towards a better relationship or a better
career, and you simply did not do so? Most of us have
undergone such experiences at one time or another, and this is
usually due to the existence of limiting beliefs.

Limiting beliefs can make themselves felt in several ways. You

may notice that your client displays a lack of passion, a lack
of planning or shows general apathy towards their life and
desires. This is actually the result of limiting beliefs
working behind the scenes and thus preventing your client from
believing in their success. Once you identify such signs, you
can work with your clients to overcome their limiting beliefs,
insecurities and inner fears.

One of the most important ways in which to do this is to build

client self-confidence.
What are we really afraid of? As a life coach, this is one of
the most important aspects that you need to address, when you
work with your clients. Limiting beliefs blind us to
opportunities, prevent us from taking chances and magnify our
fear of failure and rejection.

The biggest challenge of limiting beliefs is that they are

difficult to spot and, therefore, harder to overcome; we are
often unaware of their existence. Simply put, limiting beliefs
are those beliefs that have the power to limit our growth and
progress.

Limiting beliefs are often derived from personal experiences

in the home, at work and in close relationships. Many strong
limiting beliefs originate from childhood experiences. We
undergo specific experiences and internalise our feelings.

For example
We may have forgotten our lines, while on stage during a
school play. The resulting nervousness or embarrassment may
lead us to believe that we suffer from stage fright and cannot
speak in front of people. This limiting belief often prevents
people from speaking confidently, even when they become
adults.
Life coaches offer invaluable services to clients, insomuch as
they help them overcome limiting beliefs and motivate them to
move forward. If you aspire to be a life coach, one of the
most empowering tasks will be to help clients identify such
beliefs, fears and insecurities.

The following are some common examples of limiting beliefs. We

should never underestimate the negative impact of limiting
beliefs.

Lack of motivation
Does your client really lack motivation, or are they burnt
out? Is there something in their environment that is draining
and negative? Lack of motivation usually leads to inadequate
energy levels – your client may complain of disproportionate
exhaustion and may often find it difficult to get through the
day. As a life coach, you need to be able to find out if the
cause is burnout or lack of motivation.
Chronic procrastination
While laziness could be a basic cause (and this is often
related to lack of motivation), procrastination is usually due
to one reason: fear.

Fear of rejection, failure, alienation and many other factors

are often the hidden forces behind procrastination.

Lack of resources
Lack of internal resources is often reflected as a lack of
external resources. Once you encourage your client to think
about courage, success, skills, clarity, passion and
willpower, external resources will also begin to seem
abundant. Change for the better starts by identifying your
strengths.

Lack of time/too many responsibilities

You will find that many clients tend to give lack of time or
too many responsibilities as reasons for being unable to
incorporate their desired changes into their lives. This
usually serves as an excuse to avoid starting change.

The client has no idea of who they really are

We feel stuck or do not progress because we do not take the
time to figure out who we are or what we want. If this is the
case, you need to work with your client, in order to identify
their strengths and values, so that you can put them in touch
with themselves first.

The above are just some common examples of limiting beliefs.

There are hundreds of limiting beliefs that lurk in our
subconscious minds, and we tend to attract experiences that
reinforce these beliefs.

For example
If you believe that you are bad at maths, your subconscious
mind will encourage you to do badly in maths, although you may
not even realise that this is happening. Once you do badly,
you will be even more convinced that your belief about your
maths ability is true.
As a life coach, you must be able to identify limiting beliefs
and help clients to overcome them over time. Limiting beliefs
are one of the causes of low self-confidence. They dominate
our life stories and crop up in every direction, no matter
where we turn.

To follow are some more common limiting beliefs that hold

people back from success, happiness and fulfilment:

I’m not smart enough/successful enough/pretty enough/my

sibling is the smart/pretty/intelligent/lovable one
I’m not the kind of person who’d do well in
school/college/a job
I should stick to easy tasks because I can’t handle
challenges
Money is difficult to earn, and I never earn enough
My partners are always unfaithful to me because they are
liars/I am not lovable so I’d better stay away from
serious relationships
Everyone is manipulative and untrustworthy
I can’t do this because of that/him/her/them
I’m always treated badly, and nobody respects me
I shouldn’t ask for what I want because I always get
rejected
Life is meaningless and is always going to be like this

Activity
Estimated time: 10 minutes

Sit down and think calmly about any limiting beliefs that you
may have about yourself.

How do these beliefs affect your life?

Have you held yourself back from success or challenges
or enjoying yourself because of them?
2.4 Understanding how Limiting
Beliefs Work
The biggest problem with limiting beliefs is
that they are always hidden.

Therefore, we are not consciously making decisions – the

limiting belief is quietly driving our decisions and choices
from beneath the surface.

Without your active commitment and participation, your clients

may find it difficult, if not impossible, to accept that they
may have had a serious hand in attracting negative
experiences. Deep down, it is nothing but fear and insecurity
of being judged, criticised or rejected.

What you really need to convince your clients about is the

fact that someone, somewhere is always going to judge,
criticise or find fault with their decisions and choices. You
can never please everyone because each person has their own
set of goals, perceptions and opinions.

It is not necessary to internalise judgements and opinions and

keep yourself back from your own happiness. The only thing
that you and everyone else need to do is make a commitment to
pleasing ourselves. That is when we will begin to live
fulfilling and meaningful lives.

For example
If you study to be a doctor because your father wanted you to,
but your real interest lies in art, you will be unhappy all
your life because you did not fulfil your own wishes.
Seeking third party approval and people-pleasing is one of the
main causes of internal conflict, depression and stress. We
end up blaming the weather, the government, other people and
every other circumstance for our own choices. We have the
power to create whatever we put our minds to. This includes
both good and bad aspects.

2.5 How to Help Clients Identify

Limiting Beliefs

Lack of enthusiasm and passion

Lack of interest and enthusiasm for your job, business, daily
life or relationships clearly indicate the presence of
limiting beliefs. You start to lack passion, when you begin to
entertain inner doubts about what you can and cannot do. These
beliefs are further fuelled by approval or disapproval from
others.

Your limiting beliefs are manipulating your subconscious mind,

which is then tricking your conscious mind into believing that
you cannot achieve success in an area. This is when you begin
to believe your limitations.

As a life coach, ask your clients what they do and do not feel
passionate and enthused about. If your client has stopped
dreaming, they will show a lack of interest.

As the old saying goes, ‘You will miss 100% of the shots that
you never take.’
The very first step in helping your clients move on with their
lives is to rekindle their passion for life. You can even
apply this to yourself. The more interested and passionate you
are about becoming a life coach, the more successful your
practice is likely to be.

Lack of planning
Lack of planning often means that we live our lives on auto-
pilot and simply allow life to happen to us. We react to the
challenges of each day and continue to live humdrum, mundane
lives, without daring to dream. The underlying belief
operating here is that, as we do not believe that we can
succeed, we do not bother planning.

Planning indicates interest and organisation, as well as a

desire to reach our goals. Once you motivate your client to
have an intention (this could be related to any aspect of
life), the next step involves planning. The minute we start
making a plan, our subconscious mind stops trying to tell us
that we cannot do something; your limiting beliefs begin to
dissolve in light of your intentions and plan.

As you work with clients, remember to tell them to be flexible

and go easy on themselves. If you are helping your client
overcome major limiting beliefs, it is very important to begin
the plan with small, realistic steps. If the plan becomes
overly ambitious or impractical, it will turn into a setback.
The actual plan is not as important as the fact that the
person is willing to sit down and think about how they are
going to work towards what they want.

Boost self-confidence
A high level of self-confidence is one of the best ways in
which to eliminate limiting beliefs. We may have spent many
years or even decades harbouring these limiting beliefs.

There are several ways in which to boost your client’s self-

confidence, and they are outlined below:
 Give your client genuine compliments – without overdoing
it – about something that they have said or done.
Dig into your own life experiences, and share instances
whereby you lacked confidence and were able to boost
yourself. Tell them that they can do it too, and explain
how they can do it. For example, if you have a client
who is afraid to speak in public, try asking him or her
to practise in front of a mirror.
Try to listen more than you talk. Often, the feeling of
being acknowledged and respected does a lot to promote
self-confidence. One of the main reasons that people
lack self-confidence is when they feel that they are not
important enough or that people do not enjoy their
company.
Tell your client that you trust in their ability to make
decisions and choices. Repeat this statement a couple of
times during your conversations.
Acknowledge and recognise the way in which your client
dealt with a situation, tackled a challenge or did
something differently to before. Some important things
in our lives go unnoticed, unless it is highlighted and
brought to our awareness.
Discuss different subjects, and allow the client to talk
and offer their views and opinions. Use positive,
empowering language.

The most important thing that you need to do as a life coach

is to motivate your clients to take control of their own
confidence. You may wish to consider helping them gradually
move away from basing their self-esteem on the opinions of
others and, instead, ground it within themselves. Their self-
confidence will gradually improve, when they realise that the
only important thing to consider is what they think of
themselves.

Holistic life coaching can help clients change the pattern of

their thoughts and eventually overcome limiting beliefs. It
requires consistent practice and commitment, in order to
overcome these thoughts and beliefs. Remember that these
beliefs have been driving your behaviour and actions for
years, and it will take time to eliminate them.

Help your Clients Replace their Limiting Beliefs with

Affirmations
How we speak to ourselves has a great effect on how we think
about ourselves and deal with life in general. Affirmations or
positive, motivating statements can do a great deal to
mitigate the effect of limiting beliefs.

You can encourage your clients to repeat these affirmations

several times in a day, in order to break negative patterns of
thinking about themselves. Every time that they are tempted to
fall back into their old patterns of thinking, motivate your
clients to replace a negative thought with a positive one.

Some examples of simple affirmations could include:

I am a capable and successful person.

I respect everyone, and everyone respects me.
I am wealthy and find it easy to make money.
Any challenges that I face are excellent opportunities
to learn.

When you start practising as a life coach, you will discover

that, for many people, limiting beliefs have been an ingrained
and negative part of their lives for so long that the beliefs
actually feel ‘normal’. As a result, not many individuals make
a conscious effort to address and remove them. Life coaching
can help you create empowering, unique and new ways of
adapting to your life.

Encourage Clients to Create Something New

There is something positive and holistic about creating
something new. It could be something simple, such as cooking a
unique dish, painting, singing a song, writing a book,
gardening or creating poetry.

The simple act of doing something new helps foster a feeling

of accomplishment, and this, in turn, boosts confidence.

Fact

You may earn anywhere between £30

to £60 per session and up to £300, especially for corporate
life coaching.
nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk

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Assignment
Foundational Values & Limiting Beliefs

Time: 30+ minutes

Hopefully, you took in as much of the information in this

module as possible. To find out how well you have done,
complete the following worksheet.

Download the worksheet below and complete.

Download Worksheet (PDF)

Module Summary
Foundational or core values are formed from circumstances,
relationships and experiences right from our childhood days.
Values define human beings and help them lead a purposeful
life. There are many values, and each person may internalise
the values that resonate with them.

Just as living with your inner values helps you lead a

fulfilling and meaningful life, limiting beliefs can
effectively hinder you from living fearlessly. Limiting
beliefs often prevent people from reaching beyond themselves
and achieving their goals. They make us believe that we are
less that we can be. One of the first and foremost tasks of a
life coach is to identify clients’ limiting beliefs and help
them overcome their inner fears.

Self-limiting beliefs drive our subconscious thoughts, actions

and behaviours, and, very often, we are unable to grasp the
reasons why we sometimes make the decisions that we do.
Negative beliefs about yourself can create the very
circumstances that you have been hoping to avoid.

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